About us
Cairns Taiko is a not-for-profit club based in tropical Far North Queensland.
We started in 2011 with five players and have steadily grown and evolved to now have our regular performance team and classes.
We love to share our love for taiko with our audiences, teammates and students. Our hope is that you enjoy listening and watching our performances as much as we enjoy playing.
What is Taiko?
Taiko is the Japanese word for drums, and also for the act of drumming. Drums have been used in Japanese festivals for millennia, but ensemble drumming is a relatively modern performance art.
Through our performances, workshops and classes, we hope to share our love of music and foster friendships within our community and around the globe.
Our Drums
We began our journey with five people and five home-made drums. Now our collection has expanded to include five beautiful nagado drums imported from Japan and four extra-large wine-barrel drums. (And a whole lot of others!)
While some were more expensive than others, they are all extremely valuable to us. They are our babies - the bigger ones even have names!
Drum making
We believe that a deeper respect and understanding of the instruments we use can be gained by actively participating in the process of their construction and maintenance.
If you'd like to know a little more about how we made our drums and stands, we have a separate page for that.